Paying big for use of solitary confinement

In this June 13, 2013 photo, Daniel Zambrano, of Tijuana, Mexico, holds one of the bars that make up the border wall separating the U.S. and Mexico where the border meets the Pacific Ocean in San Diego. Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump's push for a border wall is not a new idea, and since World War I, has been pursued often. Historians say opponents of Mexican immigration have advocated for a wall off and on for about 100 years with little results due to changing technologies and pressure to divert enforcement attention elsewhere.(Photo: Gregory Bull/The Associated Press)

New Mexico counties have lost more than $20 million in legal judgments related to the use of solitary confinement in holding detainees, according to a recent Associated Press story. A $1.8 million settlement in Sandoval County just this week added to that total.

Nobody knows more about that than the taxpayers in Doña Ana County.

More than three-fourths of that total stems from one case. In 2012, the county lost a $15.5 million lawsuit filed by former inmate Stephen Slevin, who had been held for 22 months in solitary confinement and denied basic medical and dental care. Jurors were so upset by Slevin’s condition at the end of his confinement that the original verdict against the county had been an astonishing $22 million.

While that judgment was not typical in our state, the conditions that led to it were. A 2015 survey by the Association of State Correctional Administrators and Yale Law School found that New Mexico placed detainees in solitary confinement for periods of 15 days or longer more than any other state in the country except Nebraska and Utah. Many of those detainees are suffering from mental illness.

According to the Department of Justice, about a quarter of the inmates being held in our jails and prisons who have a mental disorder have reported being put into solitary confinement.

“What we’re doing is taking people with the most serious illness, and they’re sitting in jail for six months, usually in isolation — and that makes this a human rights abuse,” psychiatrist Terry Kupers told The AP.

The New Mexico Legislature is considering a bill that would ban the use of solitary confinement for those under the age of 18, pregnant women and those who have a serious mental disability. It would also require a full reporting of monetary settlements paid to inmates or former inmates.

Corrections officers argue that solitary confinement is needed to protect both prison staff and inmates. Taking the tool away would make our jails and prisons more dangerous, they said. But clearly, the practice is being used more in New Mexico than other states. And too often, that is because of money.

Inmates often arrive at the jail in the throes of a mental health crisis, and detention centers are ill equipped to deal with them. And so, jailers opt for the cheapest alternative.

That was certainly the situation with the Slevin case. In their zeal to limit spending at the detention center, the county subjected itself to numerous lawsuits and ended up losing millions. But even worse, we neglected our responsibility to provide for the basic, humane care and treatment of those under our control.

And that’s in one of the largest counties in the state. Smaller, poorer counties have even fewer resources.

We appreciate the enormous challenge created for county jails by our state’s lack of adequate mental health care. It’s estimated that about 2,500 people a day with mental illness are being held in jails throughout New Mexico. We do need to provide our jails with the resources needed to deal with that population.

But we don’t think that sticking people in solitary confinement is the answer. We encourage New Mexico legislators to join with their colleagues in other states in reigning in the use of this practice.